An important aspect of improving the trust-worthiness of semi-conductor devices, and semi-conductor based systems is enhancing their physical security. In particular there is a demand for semi-conductor devices to be resistant not only to computational attacks but also to physical attacks such as reverse engineering. Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are able to generate signatures based on device manufacturing variations that are infeasible to control or reproduce. Ideally, every PUF can generate a unique output for a fixed given input and so provides a means of authentication that can be used in many security, protection, and digital rights management applications.
Authentication using PUFs typically involves a challenge-response cycle. Protocols have been devised that reduce the likelihood of false negative determinations being made during challenge-response authentication. However, false positive determinations are an increasing problem.
It would be desirable therefore to provide an improved PUF authentication method.